Pulled Pork with Homemade Slaw
Cook Notes
BBQ Used: Kamado Joe Classic III
Cooking Method: Smoking / Low and Slow
Fuel used: Kamado Joe Big Block Charcoal
Cooking Temperature: Low - Medium
Key Accessories
Ingredients
2.3kg Boneless Pork Shoulder
Hot sauce (or another binder)
Smokey Chipotle BBQ Run from The Smokey Carter
Gaucho Steak Rub from The Smokey Carter
For the Slaw
1 Small Red Cabbage
2 Medium Sized Carrots
1 Red Onion
1 tsp Wholegrain Mustard
1tsp Dijon Mustard
Zest of 1 Lemon
Juice of half a Lemon
100g Mayonnaise (Plus extra if needed)
Texas Ranch rub from The Smokey Carter
1 tbsp Chopped Flat Leaf Parsley
If you have followed my channel or website for any length of time, you will know that I don’t often cook low and slow BBQ. There are just so many other foods out there I want to try and I believe I “sickened” myself of low and slow in the early days. Saying that, it is nice to practice the skills every now and again and a pork shoulder is the perfect way to do it. One of my guilty pleasures is a pulled pork butty with a red cabbage slaw so it made sense to put one together.
Method
For this cook, I wanted to test out the SloRoller attachment on my Kamado Joe Classic III. I filled the Charcoal basket with KJ Big Block Charcoal and put a firelighter in to get the fire started. I added the SloRoller and allowed the temperature to slowly come up to 120-130c. I added two different wood chunks to the fire to give me my smoke profile on the pork shoulder. The first was a chunk of Whiskey Oak from Ballygowan Barrels and the second was a chunk of Hickory.
I got this Pork Shoulder from Hillstown Farm Shop. Their pork is from rare-breed Middle White Pigs and has always been top quality so I made the trip to get my hands on one. Luckily, there was very little trimming needing done, I like to remove the majority of the outer fat to allow the seasonings to get to the meat. There is so much fat running through the shoulder to keep it moist so I don’t think the outer fat is necessary.
I used the Jaipur Collab hot sauce from The Smokey Carter as a binder then seasoned the shoulder with the two runs, applying the finer rub first then the courser rub as a second layer.
I put the shoulder onto the BBQ with a drip pan below it filled with boiling water. This isn’t to add moisture to the grill but more to catch any fat drippings that would otherwise hit the SloRoller and burn. I used the Thermapen Smoke on this cook to monitor the temperature of the pork shoulder and the temperature of the BBQ at grill level. I setup an alarm to warn me if the BBQ temp started to move outside the range of 120-150c although this was just a precaution. I also set an alarm for the internal temperature of the shoulder at 80c as the shoulder should be coming out of any stall at this stage and I could check to see if I wanted to wrap it.
While the shoulder is smoking, you can prepare the slaw. It usually benefits from a few hours chilling in the fridge to allow the lemon juice to slightly soften the veg and all the other flavours to come together. Finely slice your red cabbage and onion then either grate or ribbon your carrots. Add them into a large bowl and add all the other ingredients apart from the rub. Mix everything thoroughly together and check the consistency. If you need to add a little more mayonnaise then now is the time to do it. Additionally, if you want it to have a little more tang, you might need some extra lemon juice.
Once you are happy with the flavours and the consistency, you can season it with your rub, tasting it after each mix and adjusting the quantity to get the flavour you want. Put the slaw into the fridge and let it chill until your shoulder is ready.
I chose to wrap my shoulder after the temperature reached 81c. This isn’t a magic number that is ideal for wrapping - but I was happy with the colour on the outside, it had come through the stall and I wanted to speed up the last stage of the cook. I wrapped the shoulder in 2 layers of foil and put it back onto the grill. At this stage, the temperature of the grill climbed to around 150-160c but I wasn’t worried about that at this stage as the meat was wrapped. Once the internal temperature started to creep into the low 90’s I probed the shoulder for tenderness. When the probe was sliding in with no resistance, I lifted the shoulder off and rested it for around an hour.
I shredded the shoulder apart and stacked it onto some buns with the North Carolina BBQ Sauce from the Smokey Carter and a generous helping of the Slaw. We didn’t eat the full shoulder so I portioned it up and put it in the freezer so I can use it in future cooks.
